


bitten by the love bat

by aatticsaltt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M, Not Canon Compliant, Pepper Potts-centric, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Pepper Potts, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Is Not Helping, Vampire Pepper, aka im an english major and just read too much, features rdj's atrocious fashion sense, teen because inappropriate jokes and language, tony reads a lot, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aatticsaltt/pseuds/aatticsaltt
Summary: Pepper Potts' Guide to Dealing With Your Idiotic Human Boyfriend.or, Pepper is a vampire who just wants to go out on a date with her boyfriend. Problem was: Tony kept trying to get himself killed by wandering into different supernatural hot-spots, and Pepper was determined to keep him safe and out of trouble. It is a lot more difficult than she originally planned.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	bitten by the love bat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [makifa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/makifa/gifts).



> my first ever pepperony story. i hope i did them justice! also there's no real movie plot followed here... they're not engaged, but its post homecoming.... don't worry about it.
> 
> and to ali, thank you again for commissioning me. i hope this is everything you were hoping for out of this story. ❤️ all the love
> 
> enjoy! :D

Pepper never meant to fall in love. 

Then again, life had a way of getting ahead of her. Especially when the life in question involved _Tony Stark._

Pepper had lived half a dozen lives already. She’d bore witness to the march of history and its cruel disregard of its subjects. Pepper had lived through wars, had been on the front lines wearing a red cross on her arm. Humans came and went in her life, and she’d fallen in and out of love more times than she could count. 

None of those lives seemed quite so vibrant as the one she shared with Tony.

It was between sips of blood (mixed with cranberry juice; the taste was terrible, but it kept Tony from drinking it. He’d sniffed it once, wrinkled his nose, and never touched her stash in the fridge again) that she heard Tony shuffling his way into the kitchen. Pepper pretended not to notice as he entered and came up behind where she was sitting.

Tony’s fingers brushed along the back of her neck, nudging her hair over her shoulder. Pepper tipped her head forward to allow her boyfriend the room to brush his lips over the notch of her spine. All the tension she’d been carrying as she prepared for a stressful day at work dripped away the longer Tony’s lips touched her.

After two more slow kisses, Pepper hummed a contented note and spoke. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said. “Sleep well?”

“Yes, actually,” he said, his lips brushing closer to her hairline with every syllable. “I would’ve slept longer if you stayed in bed with me.”

“Some of us have adult jobs, Tony, like running _your_ company.” Tony pressed a firm kiss to her hairline before backing away. “You are the one who made me CEO.”

Tony circled the table to grab the plate of food Pepper had prepared for him as he said, “I rescind you being CEO on the grounds of more sleepy cuddle time.”

“Not naked cuddle time?” she asked.

“That too.”

Pepper snorted into her glass, and the cranberry-blood sloshed against the sides. She felt a familiar ache in her jaw where her fangs threatened to extend; a hundred or so years of practice kept them from popping out and scaring the shit out of her boyfriend.

“You are so spoiled, you brat.”

“Said as though it's a bad thing, which it’s not.” Tony sat down across from her. Their legs brushed under the table and he pushed his toes over hers. Pepper bit back the automatic footsie comment on the tip of her tongue. It was a painfully Tony thing to say, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of having an effect on her sense of humor so early in the morning. “You wouldn’t want me if I wasn’t bratty.” 

“Oh, is that so?” 

Tony took a bite of his sausage and nodded. “Yup.”

“Hm.” With one last swig, Pepper polished off her cup of cranberry-flavored blood. She stood, sliding her legs away from Tony’s warm ones, and went to set her cup in the sink. “If you’re so sure of that, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind the couch being your bed tonight.”

“Oh, is mommy going to punish me?”

Pepper paused and turned to her boyfriend with an incredulous look on her face. There was a shit-eating grin wide enough to rival the Chesire’s on Tony’s lips. She raised an accusing finger towards him.

“ _No._ ”

Tony laughed. “No? Come on, Pep. No mommy kink for you?”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “And _you_ don’t have a mommy kink either, so I don’t even want to hear it.” 

To settle her point, Pepper grabbed a dishrag and tossed it at his smug face. Tony easily dodged it and picked it up to twirl around his ever-anxious hands.

“You don’t know me, Miss Potts,” he said. 

_I don’t know you?_ Pepper rolled her eyes and headed back over to the table. The smile on her boyfriend’s face melted away, leaving a quiet, pensive look on his face. Stubble caught on her fingers as Pepper cupped his cheeks and tilted his head back so their eyes could meet. 

“I know you, Mr. Stark,” she said.

A hint of the smile returned moments before their lips met. Tony’s hand came up to cup the back of her neck, keeping Pepper from straying too far.

“Better than anyone,” he whispered, and then they were kissing again, longer this time. The second she tried to back away, Tony would pull her closer, insistently keeping her mouth over his. When he couldn’t seem to bite his tongue anymore, he pulled an inch away and said, “Stay home today. Call off work for once.”

Pepper smiled. “Is the brat wanting attention today?”

“Always, if it’s your attention.”

The blunt honesty gave her pause. Tony had a razor-sharp wit and was never afraid to use words to keep people at arm’s length. The moments of quiet, brutal truth always took her by surprise, even after all these years, and Pepper felt honored she was one of the few Tony never had an issue with being honest with.

When the faint surprise passed, Pepper smoothed her hand over his forehead, chasing back all the stray hairs that had fallen over his skin. Tony stared wordlessly up at her with eyes so full of adoration her throat tightened and nearly strangled the words she whispered.

“You know I can’t.”

“You’re the CEO,” he pointed out, “you can do whatever you want.”

“If I didn’t have a billion and one meetings today, you might’ve been right, but…”

“But you do, and Tony’s being kicked to the curb.” Pepper curled her fingers through his hair and scratched along his scalp with dull nails to keep the disappointed look brewing on his face at bay. “I get it.”

“Drama queen,” she teased.

Tony leaned up, eager as a little puppy, to meet her halfway for another kiss. Even she couldn’t help but smile into it.

“I love you,” she told him. “Be good.”

“Love you too, honey. Have a good day at work.”

“You too.” Her boyfriend wrinkled his nose at the reminder he also had work to do today, and couldn’t run off to go hang out with a certain web-slinger to avoid his other responsibilities like he normally would. “Remember, the new generation StarkPhone is supposed to release in September, and we haven’t even begun pre-production.”

“It’ll be done,” Tony promised. “Tomorrow night at the latest.”

With one last kiss to his forehead, Pepper pulled away from her boyfriend. He let her go, looking rather reluctant to do so, and held onto her fingers as long as he could before his hand fell empty to his lap. 

“Holding you to that,” she said.

Pepper felt his eyes on her back until the door clicked shut behind her.

* * *

When Pepper arrived back home, the penthouse was quiet. She toed her shoes off by the door and padded down the steps leading to Tony’s workshop.

The workshop at the compound was the closest he’d come to recreating the workshop from their old Malibu home. The echoes were clear in the snack bar, in the glass entry, in the cars sitting pristine in the corner. Then, at the center of it all, Tony hunched over one of the several workshop benches, a piece of tech in hand he held with the same tenderness in which he handled Peter.

She hesitated to enter, wanting to take a moment to see Tony in a world unbothered by anyone else. Pepper liked watching Tony. Which, now she thought it, sounded a lot creepier than it truly was. 

Tony was a paradox to everything she’d come into his life expecting. For as loud and obnoxious as her love could be, Tony was quiet, most of the time. He was quiet, attentive, and vulnerable, though it wasn’t always readily apparent. People seemed to characterize him as hyperactive, but Pepper found he was quite still. He didn’t move unless there was a purpose, or his anxiety was winning over his usually calm, steady hands.

Sure, he loved to banter with people, but Tony’s best moments were when he let the words wash away. When he would come up to Pepper, press his head to her chest and let all the battle-worn fight drain out of him. When he doesn’t speak, and simply rests against her chest, listening to the steady, quiet beating of her heart.

(Yes, heartbeat. Yet another thing Stephanie Meyer got wrong, though Pepper’s heart served a purpose different than keeping her alive.)

In the silence, Pepper pressed her hand to the glass, tracing the outline of her love with the tip of her fingernail. A flash of an old memory filtered across her mind’s eye of a man nearly a century prior. Pepper had met Howard Stark, briefly, during the war, and while it wasn’t often Tony reminded her of his father, she remembered finding an old acquaintance in the same position, working on bombs instead of phones.

Howard was… different, the way Tony described him than the young man Pepper had met nearly a century ago. She supposed humans could change a lot in that time unlike the way the years rolled off her skin like droplets of water.

Humans seem so concerned with the passing of time; as though they felt every second, the weight of it as it paused, and moved on, lost to the sea of the past. Pepper could blink and a decade would have gone by with her none the wiser. Howard seemed to have grown bitter with each passing second, and Pepper often wondered what had been so terrible in his life to have caused him to treat his son the way he did.

Pepper wondered what it would be like when she outlived Tony, the same way she outlived Howard.

She wondered if she could survive it.

Brushing aside the darker thoughts, Pepper opened the door to the workshop. Music washed in over her from the surround-sound speakers. It was no longer blaring, as it might’ve been a few years prior. Tony said it was starting to hurt his ears to have the music so loud — Pepper knew the reason had a lot more to do with the kid, but didn’t push the point. Tony would come to her about it when he felt comfortable.

What was surprising, however, was the choice in music.

> _You take the grey skies out of my way (hoo, hoo)_
> 
> _You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day_
> 
> _Turned a bright spark into a flame (yeah, yeah)_
> 
> _My beats per minute never been the same_
> 
> _'Cause you're my lady, I'm your fool (ha-ha, ha-ha)_
> 
> _It makes me crazy when you act so cruel (ha-ha, ha-ha)_
> 
> _Come on, baby, let's not fight (ha-ha, ha-ha)_
> 
> _We'll go dancing, everything will be alright (ha-ha)_

“Are you listening to _‘Wham!’_?” Pepper asked. Her brows raised when Tony jerked out of his work-stupor and swiveled to face her. “Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend?”

“Blame FRIDAY,” Tony said. “I told her to play quality eighties; not my fault she decided _Wham!_ was somehow included in that list.”

“Funny, considering FRIDAY’s perception of _quality_ derives from her creator,” Pepper said. FRIDAY turned down the music until it was barely audible as Pepper came up to her boyfriend, and he stood to greet her with a kiss. “You want me to jitterbug into your brain, hon?”

A light chuckle sounded from her boyfriend as he retreated from her arms to start cleaning up his workstation. They’d long since settled that whenever Pepper came home from work, it was also generally time for Tony to stop working too, unless he had extenuating circumstances. 

“Trust me, my brain is the last place you want to be.”

“Hm. Well, a place I do want to be is a place with food. Have you eaten at all today?”

Tony paused. _No,_ then. “Does a granola bar count?” His shoulders sagged before Pepper could even reply, familiar with her usual stern talking-to about feeding himself properly. “I meant to. FRIDAY reminded me, but it slipped my mind.”

Pepper soothed her hand over his shoulder. A larger, calloused hand covered hers and squeezed. “It’s okay. You’ve been doing really well lately. Now… I’m going to change out of these clothes, rinse off, and we’re going to go out tonight for dinner.”

“Okay,” Tony agreed. “Do I get to join you this time?”

The smile on her face spoke for her. Tony’s own grin matched hers, and when she backed away towards the door, he followed.

(Pepper squealed when, stepping off of the elevator, Tony scooped her off her feet and carried her up to their shower. Their laughter mixed together, and Pepper was content to lose herself in the way his body — strong, scarred, sacred — felt when he pushed up against her in the damp heat of their shower.)

* * *

They settled on dinner at Pure Thai Cookhouse because neither of them could stand Le Bernardin. Tony said it reminded him of some highbrow places his father used to take him as a child and Pepper couldn’t stomach seafood.

A leftover quirk from her brief years as a human, she supposed.

The valet parked their car, and Pepper took Tony’s offered arm to head inside. The hostess took one look at them and ushered them back to the most private table they could offer at the restaurant and hurried off with stars in her eyes after triple-checking they were settled comfortably.

“Great, now that she’s gone,” Tony said, rising from his seat, “I’m going to go to the restroom. All this hero worship is making me gag.”

Pepper scoffed. “Since when? You love it.”

Tony winked before vanishing back into the bathroom. A waiter came hurrying up to their table, looking ruffled, as though the waiters had all had a mini battle over who would serve Iron Man and his CEO girlfriend. (Pepper preferred to think in the order of Pepper Potts and her infuriating but loveable boyfriend, but she knew people saw the man before they saw the woman; humans were predictable, and resistant to change.)

“What can I get for you to drink today, ma’am?” he asked.

“Two waters,” she said. “And is it okay if I go ahead and order? We’ve been here before.”

“Of course.”

Pepper ordered Tony Pa-Yao Beef Noodles Soup, since it seemed to be the closest thing to a healthy meal they cooked here that wasn’t a salad (of which Tony threw a fit about every time she tried to coerce him into eating). For herself, she ordered a Green Papaya Salad with extra lime dressing.

The waiter scribbled down their orders and was just returning with two glasses of water by the time Tony settled down in his seat again. He nodded his thanks to the now blushing waiter, then lifted his cup to wave in Pepper’s face. She stared at Tony, unamused.

“Water?” he asked. “Come on, you couldn’t have at least allowed me the dignity of a soda?”

At the thought of soda breath, Pepper wrinkled her nose. How humans enjoyed soda was beyond her; it was acidic, and left her with a bitter aftertaste in her throat. “If you want me to not kiss you for the next few hours, you’re welcome to order a soda.”

Tony looked horrified by the thought. “No.”

“Then deal with the water.”

“Unbelievable…”

By the time Tony was done pouting about having to drink water, their food was ready. The waiter hurried to set their plates in front of them, apologized for the ten minute wait (which Pepper thought was a little excessive), refilled their waters, and rushed off again. 

“Someone has a crush on you,” Pepper mused, noting the waiter’s bright red cheeks whenever Tony so much as glanced his way.

“As he should,” Tony said. He picked up his silverware, and looked down at his plate. Pepper bit back a smile at the immediate affronted look he fixed her with. “Pep, what is with all the greenery on this plate? Even celery! Are there any gases in the air I should be concerned about?”

The smile wound up on her face anyway. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Davison,” Pepper said.

“Ha!” Tony pointed his fork at her, grin full of victory “I _knew_ you watched it.”

“Twenty years back and three miles away.”

“Stop, I might swoon.”

Dinner was wonderful; for all of Tony’s bitching about there being more vegetables than he’d normally ever put on his own plate, he polished off the bowl with barely a drop left. Pepper was a little more dainty with her meal and waved off an offer for a to-go box. Sure, she could stomach human food, but it wasn’t ever something she enjoyed. It was just a necessary part of a century-long charade.

They paid, and instead of immediately taking the car back to the compound, Pepper suggested they talk a walk around Manhattan. Tony eyed her for a moment before shrugging and offering his arm again. She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, and off they went into the evening buzz in Time Square.

“It’s lovely out tonight,” Pepper said. They passed by the DSW Shoe Warehouse, which was abuzz with people hurrying in and out, even at the later hour. A gaggle of shoppers stopped and stared as they went past, and Pepper had to bite back the urge to bare her fangs at them. Tony was _hers_ to ogle, not theirs. “I’m glad we decided on a walk before heading home.”

A pleased look flashed across Tony’s face. A familiar one, when he realized he’d made her happy by going along with her plans. “Nothing here is as lovely as the woman on my arm,” Tony said, and pressed a quick kiss to her exposed shoulder.

“Oh, stop it,” she said.

Tony’s nose wrinkled. “‘In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.’”

Pepper heard her laughter before she even realized she’d begun to giggle. The pleased look on Tony’s face returned, and stayed. “What's with all the literature references? This is the third time you’ve quoted Jane Austen tonight, and not including the one while we were in the shower.”

“Must be something in the air,” Tony said, batting at the air with his free hand idly. “Maybe an English major got a bit too full of themselves and it’s contagious.”

“I find it hard to believe you could be _more_ full of yourself,” Pepper said.

They paused at the intersection, waiting to cross the street. They were heading rather aimlessly towards Clinton, but Pepper found she didn’t mind so much as long as she was heading nowhere with Tony. 

“Well, if I had a _clone_ …”

Pepper scoffed and forced back the urge to recoil away from her boyfriend. She rescinded all nice thoughts about him. “You’re disgusting.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at her. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

Sure, she had; the thought had crossed her mind once or twice thanks to the Iron Man suit, but she’d never say it outloud to anyone. “Okay, Woody Allen.”

“Hey, he was only talking about masturbation,” Tony pointed out, and alright, she’d give him that one. “At least give me the decency of David Cross.”

“Jeckle and Hyde?”

Tony hummed and shook his head. “Too subtle. Settle for Haldeman?”

“Haldeman?” Pepper strained her mind, but she couldn’t think of any books or authors by the name of Haldeman. “I don’t know that one.”

“Yes, you do. Blood Sisters?”

“Oh, right.” She wrinkled her nose. _Blood Sisters_ had been a story she’d unfortunately picked up at the library back around the time Tony and she first met. “That story was awful, and not at all subtle.”

“Exactly why we’re settling for it. Come on, Pep, you know I don’t do subtlety.”

Pepper turned to look at her boyfriend, making a point of dragging her eyes up and down his choice of outfit. “Unfortunately.”

He let out an audible gasp of offense. “What was that look? That was a judgemental look.”

Where to even begin? Tony had decided, despite it being July, to wear a neon-pink sweater with a blue and purple stripe across the middle. To top off the look, he had a loose pair of black pants on and lifted neon-yellow tennis-shoes. All in all, not something Pepper would ever be caught dead wearing anymore.

(The 80’s and early 90’s were a… _weird_ time for her.)

“Your outfit is an _interesting_ choice. Reminiscing the 90’s?”

The light turned red and the crosswalk light lit up. Tony urged her across the street amidst the murmuring crowd who had their phones out and pointed at him, and glared at the car who’d pulled too far into the crosswalk lane. 

“This sweater is from ‘88, thank you,” he said.

“Why on Earth do you still have it?” she asked.

“It’s new, actually.” _Of course it is._ Pepper resisted the powerful urge to roll her eyes. “The kid said vintage looks are in, so I went shopping.”

“In the closet, sure,” she said. “Are you seriously taking fashion advice from a kid who wears science pun t-shirts everyday?”

Tony pouted at her. “Hey, his science pun t-shirts are great.” He paused, then said, “Don’t ever tell Peter I said that. I will literally never hear the end of it.”

“How can I even tell him? You practically hiss at me whenever I interrupt your _special bonding time._ ”

A low blush colored Tony’s cheeks and he looked away from her and back to the sidewalk. Pepper had half a mind to pinch his cheeks and tease him about his blushing, but figured it would be a little cruel to tease him too much when he was only now learning to be open with someone else besides herself, Happy, and Rhodey.

“Hey, you want to go to an art gallery in Hell’s Kitchen?” Tony asked suddenly. “It opened last week, and you like fancy art places.”

While he wasn’t incorrect, Pepper had heard about this particular art gallery. It had been built on top of an old morgue in an effort to rehabilitate the area after it had been abandoned during World War II. Problem was, ghosts (and worse, poltergeists), hung around morgues in droves, and the people who wandered unwittingly into their den often experienced terrible misfortune following their visit. 

If there was one thing Pepper was certain of, it was that Tony didn’t need anymore things going wrong in his life. More or less something as silly as being haunted because they wanted to look at some art.

“No,” Pepper said, perhaps a little too quick if Tony’s confused look was any indication. “Not there.”

“Why not?” 

“I… was thinking we could go to the movies instead,” Pepper said, lying through her teeth. “We’re in the theatre district, and there’s the AMC on thirty-fourth and fourteenth that’s playing The Last Jedi.”

“Like I haven’t seen it seven times with Pete already,” Tony grumbled. Despite his distaste for the idea, they changed course for the AMC. “Why the hell not though? Give me something to lord over him when he’s being a little shit.”

She breathed a mental sigh of relief. At least Tony didn’t fight her on going to the art museum — sometimes when he got an idea in his head about where he wanted to go, he was hard to persuade otherwise. 

The walk to the AMC was pleasant. The crowds thinned out a little more as they got closer, so it wasn’t quite so claustrophobic. Tony decided half-way there to regale her with the story about the time he and Rhodey had snuck out of their dorm at two in the morning and drove all the way to New York City, just to see Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the big city.

“We made it back in time for Rhodey’s first class of the day,” Tony was saying. They’d made it to the AMC, and were now standing in line to get a ticket. “I went straight back to the dorm and passed out.”

“You willingly slept?” Pepper teased. “I find that hard to believe.”

Tony leveled her with an unamused look. “Ha ha.” There was a moment of quiet pause, before he amended, “I hadn’t slept in four days.”

“There it is.”

They were three people away from the ticket booth when the scent hit her nose. Pepper’s fangs extended before she had made the conscious thought to allow it, and she pursed her lips tight to keep them hidden. 

Werewolves and vampires really weren’t that different — both were night-creatures, both had weirdly specific food cravings (werewolves, raw meat; vampires, blood), and both were _extremely_ territorial. Pepper had learned, over the years, to master herself and keep instincts from driving her, but when she smelled a werewolf who had marked its territory, it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

And their scent was _everywhere._

“We have to go,” Pepper said. The snarl was building in her throat, and her eyes darted between faces to try and spot where the threat was hiding within all the human faces. “ _Now._ ”

Without waiting for Tony to reply, she turned the way they came and started walking as fast as humanly allowed without full-on sprinting. Tony started a light jog to keep up with her rapid pace.

“Why, what’s happening?” Tony demanded, voice sharp. He kept glancing back at the movie theater, like he expected a mob to be chasing them. “Pep, what’s going on with you tonight?”

Pepper stopped once they were a good hundred or so yards from the AMC. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths of the night air until her fangs finally retracted and her entire body relaxed from its tense, fight-ready position. Now she had a bit clearer of a head, she realized how absolutely insane she’d looked, running away from an AMC, but her first and only priority was keeping Tony safe.

“Nothing,” Pepper said. Her voice sounded a little rough to even her own ears, but normal enough that Tony wouldn’t question too much. “Let’s go shopping instead. Like you said, you’ve already seen The Last Jedi.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. Pepper knew he was suspicious — she’d be more concerned if he _wasn’t,_ but there wasn’t any feasible way she could explain, “Hey, there are a bunch of werewolves at that theater, and I could take them if you weren’t here for me to protect.” Because as wonderful as Tony was, and how powerful Iron Man was, he’d never fought giant wolves before, and Pepper wasn’t eager for him to start.

“You’re acting strange,” he said slowly. “Usually that’s my job. What’s going on with you?”

“I said _nothing,_ Tony. There was just something… off about the movie theater.”

Off, as in there were five very agitated werewolves loitering around nearby. Pepper had been hearing rumors about street wars between different packs within New York City. The last thing she wanted to do was get involved in the crossfires of a bunch of pissed off werewolves. If there was anything that would pause their war, it was a vampire wandering into their territory.

Dark eyes studied her face before they flitted away, up to the night sky. “Alright, fine,” he agreed. “I’ll go along with whatever the hell is going on with you that you don’t want to tell me. Shopping it is.”

The further away from the AMC they got, the more Pepper relaxed. Tony perked up with her better mood, and even seemed eager to window shop by the time they made it to the Garment District. As they passed by the lingerie section in Macy’s, Tony eagerly pointed out to the skimpy, black-lace one piece modeled by one of the mannequins. 

“No,” Pepper said, and smiled sweetly when Tony’s eager-puppy face fell.

“Aw, come on, Pep,” he said. “You’d look gorgeous.”

“Are you also going to model a few outfits for me?”

Tony shrugged. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

They kept going. Pepper had plenty of lingerie Tony had yet to see (she’d gone shopping for their upcoming anniversary, and planned to surprise him with a new look every night for the whole week leading up to their seven year anniversary) anyway. At another section of Macy’s, Pepper spotted a lovely blue blouse and pointed it out to Tony.

He took one look at it and said, “Eh, you’re no Farrah Fawcett.”

_Asshole._

“Asshole.”

“Bite me, Miss Potts,” Tony teased.

Immediately, Pepper thought, _does he know?_ But that was ridiculous. If Tony had known she was a vampire, he wouldn’t have been able to bite his tongue. Tony’s curiosity was a force to be reckoned with.

Still, the phrase set her on edge and an echo of the tension from the movie theater returned to her shoulders.

“You wish, Mr. Stark.”

They managed to make it past a couple more shops before Tony spotted his one true love, a coffee shop. He tugged on the hem of her shirt to pull her attention away from the dress she was admiring a beautiful, champagne colored pencil dress and nodded his head towards the shop.

Pepper sighed. “You do not need coffee at nine pm, Tony.”

Not to mention who owns the coffee shop… 

She didn’t wait for him to reply before she returned her attention to the dress, entertaining the thought of what it might look like on her. When she suggested shopping, Pepper hadn’t anticipated buying anything, but she’d been meaning to get a new work dress. And it was truly a very lovely dress.

Pepper turned to ask Tony if it was alright if they stepped inside so she could try on the dress when she realized her boyfriend was no longer standing beside her. Panic set in immediately; a Tony alone was a Tony who always managed to find trouble of some sort. Pepper spun around, eyes darting between the crowds of people to try and spot a stubborn brunette.

Across the street, she saw his horrendously colored backside strolling into the coffee shop. The coffee shop owned by _demons._

All pretenses of her humanity dropped when Pepper sped across the street, barely a blur to human eyes. She made it three steps into the shop before her hand was hooked through Tony’s arm. Pepper bodily dragged Tony out of the coffee shop amidst his loud protesting.

“We’re going home,” Pepper snapped. “Tonight was just not meant to happen, clearly.”

“The only reason it’s not going smoothly is because you keep cancelling every plan we try to make!” Tony said over her. “And you won’t even explain what is going on!”

Frustration bloomed in her throat, choking the words on the poison-tipped petals. Pepper tightened her grip and kept walking back towards the restaurant so they could get in the car. Tony seemed to decide arguing was pointless, which it absolutely _was,_ because he was trying to get himself injured or killed with all the supernatural hotspots he was determined to walk into tonight, and Pepper was about sick of his determination for putting himself in harms way.

The ride back to the compound was silent. They were both mad at each other for different reasons, but Pepper couldn’t calm herself down enough to mediate the situation. Tony was _hers,_ he was part of her territory, and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep him safe, what with Iron Man and his propensity for wandering into dangerous situations. And it frustrated a deep, primal part of her being that she was struggling at keeping him safe.

Tony, she knew, was frustrated at her for the lack of communication. Something of which Pepper had always stressed, but she had no idea how to explain to her science-maniac boyfriend she was a supernatural creature.

Thor was one thing. Vampires were a whole different level of fantasy and myth.

All the frustration boiling over in the car came to a head when they arrived home. Pepper couldn’t quite bite her tongue anymore, and with her boyfriend comfortably safe in their home, she finally broke the silence.

“What is wrong with you, Tony?” she snapped. “Wandering aimlessly into dangerous places like you _want_ to get hurt.”

Visibly annoyed, Tony spun to face her. “Let’s see, of all the places I tried to go today before you dragged me away: an art museum,” _ghosts, ghouls, and other ghastly entities,_ “the theater,” _overrun by werewolves, ugh,_ “and a coffee shop,” _owned by actual demons,_ “so I’m having a bit of trouble grasping what was so dangerous about any of those places.”

Wasn’t it obvious?! Pepper threw her arms out in exasperation, and said, “I shouldn’t have to explain!” 

Tony huffed and shook his head. “Believe it or not, that’s how this shit works, Pep.” The fight was steadily draining out of him; Tony hated screaming matches, and Pepper knew it was because of his father. She attempted to calm herself down… _attempted_. “I know you have your reasons, but—”

“No, you have no idea,” she bit out. “You have no idea about what _I_ am, Tony!”

“What, that you're a vampire?” Tony’s lips curved in a secretive little smirk, like he’d been _waiting_ for this moment. “I know.”

Shock erased all the anger she’d previously been feeling, and Pepper took a rather dumbfounded step backwards. “You know?”

“Of course I know. I'm a genius, remember?” Under his breath, he muttered, _God, I’m thirsty,_ and headed over to the bar in the center of their living room. Pepper watched him go, barely noticing the dramatic gestures he made around his head. “Any frat boy with two brain cells calls himself a genius, but I actually am, y'know.”

“Right,” she said airily, responding more out of habit than actual working thoughts. “You're a frat boy with three brain cells.”

Tony pointed at her. “At least.”

“How... how long have you known?”

The response didn’t come immediately. Tony was perusing the drinks available at the bar before he finally selected one. It was only a diet soda, she noted, like he’d gone to the bar on old instinct before remembering the alcohol was only for guests. He poured himself a glass and took a sip.

“Oh, a while,” he said finally. “Not very subtle with all your…” Tony gestured vaguely at her frozen figure. “Dracula tendencies.”

“What?” she choked out.

“Pep, you stare longingly at the moon and crave red meat more than anyone _ever_ should. I thought, once I dealt with the absolute insanity of the supernatural being real for a few years—” _years?!_ “—I would’ve thought you were a werewolf, if not for the fact you’re not too hairy…” 

Dark eyes flitted down, made contact with her crotch, then back up to her eyes just as fast.

 _Did he just?_ He did...

Affronted, Pepper demanded, “You based me not being a werewolf over the fact my _vagina isn’t hairy?_ ”

“Am I wrong?” A coy smile formed around the rim of his glass, and Pepper sort of wanted to punch him in his smug little face. “It’s peach fuzz, not a mane of hair, and it’s adorable, hon.”

Pepper shook her head, trying to move past this part of the conversation, because she didn’t want to even begin trying to deal with _that_ line of thought. “You didn't think to tell me that you knew?”

“It was fun watching you flounder. Not very often you're caught off guard, Miss Potts.”

She scoffed. “Yes, well, it seems to be a regular occurrence with you.”

 _Fuckin’ hairy vagina._ Why is she in love with this psycho again?

“I should hope so. Meeting expectations make life dreadfully boring.” Tony took another, longer sip of his soda and walked back over to her side. She must’ve been making some unflattering expression, because Tony’s nose wrinkled, and he waved his free hand at her face. “Why are you making that face? That's never a good face. What are you thinking?”

Pepper narrowed her eyes at him. “Your genius brain can't tell you that?”

Tony huffed. “Einstein, honey, not Robert A. Heinlein.”

“The author?” she asked.

“Right, he wrote—”

“Time for the Stars,” they said together. Tony smiled, and Pepper found the corners of her mouth itching to crawl upwards. She refused to smile just quite yet.

Not while this little shithead had some explaining to do.

“Doesn't that only apply to twins?”

His shoulders lifted with a nonchalant shrug, like he couldn’t really see the difference, even though there totally was a difference. “Still telepathy, of which I don't possess. Lack of twin notwithstanding.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and asked, “My being a vampire has never bothered you?”

“Obviously not, I'm still here.”

“Why?”

Her boyfriend glanced around the room. “Why am I in my own house?”

The same frustration from earlier made a quiet resurgence. The strangling sensation wasn’t quite so potent this time, but it still carried the same sharp edge to her voice when she demanded, “Why does it not bother you?”

“Should it? You want me to flee in terror?” he asked, brows raising higher and higher toward his hairline. “I'll have you know, I make a great damsel in distress, and the atrocity in the foyer you call an ottoman would make a great fainting couch.”

Pepper waved her hands to cut him off. “What? No. Tony,” she said, and grabbed his free hand. Tony paused, the way he always did when faced with a kind touch — with soft surprise, like he couldn’t ever quite believe someone could touch him without intent to injure. “I just don't understand why you'd stay around all this time and not even talk to me about it.”

“I trust you.” Pepper paused, all thoughts going quiet. The words are said so implicitly, and she knew he meant it from the bottom of his heart. And after so many years of people fearing the monster in their bedroom, Pepper didn’t really know what to do with the newfound knowledge. “You're not going to hurt me. I have _nothing_... to be afraid of.”

She grimaced and turned her head away from him. “You have a little to be afraid of.”

“No, I don't.” Tony lifted their joined hands to kiss her knuckles and squeezed her fingers ever so lightly. The frustration flower burned in her throat, morphing into love greater than she’d ever known. “Hate to break it to you, but you're not that scary.”

Pepper huffed to try and hide her faint amusement. “The Tony Stark of two hours ago would've begged to differ.”

"That's when you're angry at me, it doesn't count.”

“Yes it does!” Pepper insisted. “I could hurt you, especially when I’m frustrated or angry.”

Despite the very valid point she was making, Tony brushed her concerns off with another kiss to her knuckles. Pepper’s face heated like she was about to cry. “Pep, you're missing the point. I am not afraid of you, end of story.”

“You should be.”

“Okay, Edward,” Tony said. “Give me a reason to be.”

Pepper grinned, and the burning increased. She’s not quite sure what she did to deserve Tony, especially when he was being so sweet to her. Their faces were inches apart, and her eyes flicked down to his lips, curled into a matching grin of his own.

“Oh, believe me,” she said, “I can give you plenty of reasons.”

“Is this a proposition?” he murmured, setting down his glass of soda on the side table beside them. His hands found her sides, soothing burning circles into the dip of her waist. Pepper felt her non-hairy vagina take a sudden interest in those warm fingers.

“Could be,” she mused, “if you can get it up, Mr. Stark.”

A frown quickly replaced his easy grin. “Miss Potts, you wound me.”

Pepper shrugged. “You seemed to be struggling a bit a few weeks ago.”

“I was heavily medicated!” Tony protested.

“10 grams of melatonin is not being heavily medicated.”

“I was sleepy…” Tony huffed, annoyed. “Oh, come on, give me and junior a break.”

Pepper’s roaming hands paused over Tony’s ass. She pulled back an inch or two, judging his expression, unsure if he was joking or not. It was hard to tell sometimes. “You named your dick _junior?_ ”

“Actually, his full name is T.O.N.Y. Junior. Or, Talk Of New York.” Tony hesitated, and his playful smile turned a little nervous. “Too much?”

 _Too much?_ Somehow, she never had enough of Tony, all his idiosyncrasies included.

Pepper giggled at his ridiculous joke and leaned in for a long overdue kiss, soda breath be damned. 

**Author's Note:**

> aLIII i hope you enjoyed this!!! i had so much fun writing it!!! thank you thank you thank youuu ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> also went way over your word limit cap but i couldnt help myself
> 
> vampires are actually incredible. i messed with the lore a little bit to make the "tony doesn't know" a bit more plausible (i.e., they still have heartbeats/can eat human food, etc.). but i love vampires so much, what i wouldn't give to be a blood sucker
> 
> and yes, i couldn't help but mention peter here & there. i'm an iron dad slut, don't @ me. (unless u want to talk about iron dad and how amazing it is, in which case, @ me.)
> 
> yay for commissions[!!](https://aatticsaltt.tumblr.com/post/615131377277485056/commissions-thats-right-its-official-in-the)
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://aatticsaltt.tumblr.com/). I mean, if you want.


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